APRIL 1, 1913 



235 



Our Homes 



A. I. BOOT 



(A seqvel to the Home papers of Feb. 1.) 

 Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to 



every creature. — Mark 16:15. 



But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his 



righteousness, and all these things shall be added 



unto you. — Matthew 6:33. 



thou of little faith! wherefore didst thou doubt? 

 — iL\TTHEW 14:31. 



1 have been reminded that in my Home 

 paper of February 1 I omitted, or touched 

 on very lightly, one g:i-eat reason why the 

 circulation of Gleanings was increased so 

 rapidly at the start. By request I will 

 briefly go over the points I omitted. Just 

 a few days after I came out publiclj^ for 

 Chi'ist Jesus, our good pastor, the Rev. A. 

 T. Reed, came into my store one day and 

 said something like this : " Mr. Root, there 

 is to be a missionary meeting next Sunday 

 evening, and I want you to take charge and 

 talk to the people." I replied to my good 

 friend (for then I was ready to do almost 

 any thing in the world for him) that I was 

 sorry to say I had very little acquaintance 

 with missionary woi'k; furthermore, that I 

 had veiy little sympathy for or interest in 

 it. He, however, said he would lend me a 

 book about the Sandwich Islands, and I 

 could read the book between then and Sun- 

 day, and then he was sure I could give them 

 a talk on it. I again protested gently, say- 

 ing that the subject of missionary work had 

 always been exceedingly dry and uninter- 

 esting to me; and if there was any thing m 

 l^articular that made me feel sleepj^ it was 

 a talk about the Sandwich Islands. He 

 laughed, and (I think) replied that perhaps 

 I would see thing's now in a light different 

 from what I had formerly. I have forgot- 

 ten now the title of the book, but it was a 

 history of the work of the Rev. Mr. Gulick, 

 one of the early missionaries to the Sand- 

 wich Islands. As I was a very busy man 

 at that period of my life, not only through 

 the day time but often well along into 

 the night I was wondering how I should 

 get time to read that book before Sunday 

 night came. However, I carried the book 

 home and laughingly told Mrs. Root that I 

 had promised to read it during the week. I 

 looked over in the back part to see how 

 many pages there were, divided up, and 

 said something like this : '' Sue. I shall have 

 to read so many pages Monday night, so 

 many Tuesday night, and so on until I get 

 up to Saturday night." Accordingly on 

 Monday night I arranged my work so as to 

 get home a little earlier, and went for the 

 book to read the allotted portion laid out. 

 When it came bedtime Mrs. Root suggested 

 that it was time to go to bed; but I replied 



that I rather liked the book, after all, and 

 did not want to go just yet. Pretty soon, 

 said she, " Why, you have gone away past 

 the part you had marked out to read Mon- 

 day night. Hadn't you better come to bed?" 



I think it was well on toward midnight 

 before I was contented to let the book drop ; 

 and I had not only read it through long be- 

 fore Sunday night came, but read parts of 

 it again and again. It was not only a rev- 

 elation to me, but a wonderful revelation, 

 as to what missionaries had done in the way 

 of opening up business in foreign lands 

 and the islands of the sea, aside from the 

 work of converting savages and cannibals 

 and teaching the gospel. 



As it was pretty well known in our com- 

 munity at the time that I had been hereto- 

 fore more or less in sympathy with skepti- 

 cism and infidelity, quite a turnout to my 

 talk that evening was the consequence. I 

 not only occupied an hour talking about the 

 Sandwich Islands and missionary work all 

 over the world, but I hadn't got half 

 through with my stoi'y when the hour was 

 up. The result was, the prophecy of my 

 good mother came at least partly true at 

 this time of my life. I not only hunted up 

 every thing I could get hold of in regard 

 to the foreign mission work throughout the 

 world, but I talked with friends who had 

 relatives in foreign lands, and finally got 

 so full of the idea of " spreading the gos- 

 pel " that I announced in the next^issue of 

 our then verj- young (and small) bee jour- 

 nal that, if the friends who had relatives 

 or acquaintances in missionai'y work in 

 foreign lands would send me their names 

 and addresses I would send them our little 

 monthly. Gleanings in Bee Culture, free 

 of charge for as long as they cared to read 

 it. Now, here came one of my first "happy 

 surprises." I was so little posted in regard 

 to foreign missions that I did not suppose 

 there were more than a dozen or two all 

 over the face of the earth, including the 

 islands of the sea; but when applications 

 came from far and near, and letters of 

 sympathy with the work I had undertaken, 

 I was greatly surprised. One of our faith- 

 ful clerks remarked to me about this time 

 (the one who opened the mail), " Mr. Root, 

 I fear j^ou have been a little reckless. There 

 are not only many more missionaries in the 

 world than you supposed, but the postage 

 on most of the journals will be twenty-four 

 cents a year, and on some of them forty- 

 eight cents a year. Hadn't you better re- 

 call vour offer in the next issue?" 



